[FRA:] Adorno dissing Marcuse

[Ralph Dumain]

Thanks, Doug, for the clarification, not to mention its virtually 
instantaneous appearance!

Aside from pure competitiveness, I'm curious as to the intellectual context 
in 1935.  I'm aware of Adorno's contempt for Heidegger as expressed for 
example in THE JARGON OF AUTHENTICITY (1964).  But I am not so familiar 
with Adorno in the 1930s that I would know how early and in what way he 
developed an aversion to Heidegger.  Perhaps you could fill in the 
intellectual context?

BTW, I haven't yet been able to find cheap copies of two of your books:

     Critical Theory and Society, edited by Stephen Eric Bronner and 
Douglas Kellner. New York: Routledge, 1989.

     Kellner, Douglas. Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism. London: 
Macmillan; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

If you have any leads on this matter, please let me know.

At 11:07 AM 2/19/2006 -0800, Doug Kellner wrote:
>Unfortunately, Adorno's nasty attack on Marcuse was indeed found in a 
>letter. here's the information I unearthed published in my first volume of 
>Marcuse's Collected Writings, WAR, TECHNOLOGY AND FASCISM. It's in the 
>introduction and note 22:
>Horkheimer notoriously played off potential collaborators against each 
>other, making the various Institute members think that they would be major 
>contributors to the envisaged book on dialectics which turned out to be 
>Dialectic of Enlightenment, eventually co-authored with Adorno. See 
>Horkheimer's letters in Gesammelte Schriften, Volumes 15-17, which 
>document his discussions with various members of the Institute concerning 
>collaboration on the book on dialectics. In one of the low points of 
>Institute in-fighting and back-stabbing, Adorno, while in Oxford working 
>on a book on Husserl, wrote to Horkheimer, describing Marcuse, then one of 
>Horkheimer's close collaborators, as a man only "hindered by Judaism from 
>being a fascist." Adorno complained that Marcuse "had such illusions of 
>Herr Heidegger, whom he thanked all-too-heartily in the forward to his 
>Hegel book," and that he published his Hegel book with Klostermann, also 
>Heidegger's publisher. Adorno went on to suggest that he should himself 
>replace Marcuse! Adorno to Horkheimer, May 13, 1935, in Max Horkheimer, 
>Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 15: 347-348. Horkheimer tactfully replied 
>(July 5, 1935) that he could not engage all of the issues in Adorno's 
>letter in written form, glossing over his attack on Marcuse.
>
>Douglas Kellner
>Philosophy of Education Chair
>Social Sciences and Comparative Education
>University of California-Los Angeles
>Box 951521, 3022B Moore Hall
>Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521
>
>Fax  310 206 6293
>Phone 310 825 0977
>http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Ralph Dumain" <rdumain at igc.org>
>To: <theory-frankfurt-school at srcf.ucam.org>
>Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 10:51 AM
>Subject: [FRA:] Adorno dissing Marcuse
>
>
>>I found this piece of information on the Marcuse web site:
>>
>>Adorno to Horkheimer about
>>Herbert Marcuse
>>May 13, 1935 letter
>>London to New York
>>
>>On May 13, 1935 Theodor W. Adorno, then in London, wrote a letter to Max 
>>Horkheimer, head of the Institute for Social Research in New York. In it 
>>he made a nasty remark about Herbert Marcuse--that he would be a 'fascist 
>>if his Jewish background didn't prevent him' (ein "durchs Judentum 
>>verhinderter Faszist") who should be thrown out of the Institute for 
>>Social Research.
>>Horkheimer wrote back with a stern rebuke.
>>
>>http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/people/adorno/AdornoToHorkheimer1935.htm
>>
>>What was this all about, anyway?